25

The Victory of the Hundred Horns

How Youth and Beauty died, and were borne away on the crest of the Hundred Horns.

The Readying of the Twelve-Month Child

They wakened Orem in darkness; he dressed by candlelight and walked the Long Walk with guards assisting him because he could not easily support himself. It was cold; Orem had so diminished Beauty's power that the springtime of Palace Park was broken. The winter of the world outside had come at last. The flowers all were dead, the trees that turn were turning madly red and gold; the fountains were ice, and the wind was bitter here for the first time in centuries.

The Queen was holding Youth in her arms, out in the square before the Palace. The child saw Orem and called for him. Orem did not speak, but stood silent where the guards made him stop. He tried to shut the child's voice from his mind, but could not. We who listened also thought we could not bear it, but then we did.

"Papa," cried the boy. "Where have you been? Let me tell you a story!"

Weasel, Urubugala, and Craven waited on the opposite side of the square from Orem. Only Urubugala did not hold still. He danced and pranced and rolled, cavorted here and there; only once did he come near Orem, and then only to whisper, "All she does, you do!" Then he was gone again, playing the fool at another place, pretending to be bound by spells that could not utterly bind him.

The first light appeared in the sky of the east. They were in the shadow of the Palace, but Beauty was in a hurry. She knew what was truly necessary to the rite and what was not; direct sunlight was not, and she began the Passage.

She took all the clothing from her son and laid him on the silver table. Youth cried out, for the metal was cold; but there he stayed, cry or not, while Beauty removed her clothing, too. Orem looked at Urubugala—was this a part of it? Need he undress as well? Beauty had learned almost all of what she knew from Sleeve's books. Urubugala shook his head.

Youth cried out and pleaded with his mother to let him down, it's cold, it's cold. Orem knew he could not escape; Beauty had bound him, and his nets and webs stayed furled within him. We watched, and Orem kept himself as calm as if his son's cries were the calls of a bird, distant and meaningless. Kept himself calm and did all that Beauty did, making every hand sign, muttering every word along with her. After a while Youth stopped crying and began to play, catching at his mother's fingers as she made the signs. If he broke a pattern she repeated it, and so did Orem. It was long, but he made no mistakes; Weasel, Craven, and Urubugala all watched to be sure of it.

As the light grew brighter, just before the sun crested the Palace, Queen Beauty smiled and took a pin from a servant, then drew the pin along her arm, drawing blood. She dipped a finger in the blood and anointed the child's eyelids with it.

What do I do? asked Orem's questioning eyes. The answer came from Craven, who suddenly began to sing a ribald, bawling song from his common soldiering days with Palicrovol's rebel army.

The solemnity was broken; guards lunged to silence him; in the confusion Urubugala was near Orem and took hold of his hand. Orem was ready—he had already cut his wrist as deep as he could with his fingernail. The blood beaded on the shallow wound. Urubugala caught some on his fingers and was gone. As he rolled before the altar he jumped up, leaned out and spat in Beauty's face. She shouted at him; guards bound him as they had gagged Craven; but as he spat he had touched his bloody fingers to the child's eyes.

The disturbance quelled, Beauty went on, but she kept glancing up at the sky to see how bright it was. In the distance could be heard the sounds of gathering battle—shouts from many thousand throats. Palicrovol at last had started his attack. Too late, by now. Even if the city were undefended he could not get through the walls and barriers in time.

More words; more signs; then sunrise, full light dazzling off the towers of Corner Castle. Beauty bowed her head. All was done, except the killing and the drinking.

But Beauty did not reach and take the waiting knife. She looked to Orem and smiled at him.

"My husband, Little King, who loves me loyally and with his whole heart, how easily do you think that I am fooled? Do you think I haven't seen your moving hands, your mumbling lips? Do you think I didn't see your hand cut, your blood put on our child's eyes? What a fool you fools supposed me to be. For even Sleeve is not infallible, I think, and less so when his brains are addled and put in far too small a head. The Passage may only be made between parent and child if the child has swallowed the fluid of your body which he took of his own power. All these months the boy has suckled at my breast; what did he suck from yours, Little King?"

Orem despaired.

The Queen said the final words of the Passage.

Youth cried out in sudden, terrible pain. All the powers, all the hatreds, all the knowledge of his mother passed into him. He screamed, and there were words he never knew in his weeping, curses in his infant voice that sounded all the more terrible because the voice should have been innocent. Even Youth, great-hearted as he was, couldn't bear the burden Beauty placed on him. But his cries would soon be stilled; Beauty reached for the knife.

Orem watched, unable to look away, despite the fact that Urubugala was waving his hands in supplication: See me, see me! At last Orem looked, not toward Urubugala, but toward Weasel, who also had loved the child. She motioned with her head toward Urubugala, and Orem at last saw him.

He looked confused—what could you possibly want of me now? Urubugala mouthed the final words of the Passage; Orem shook his head. What good would it do?

But Weasel knew. "Papa," she cried, "why are you crying at my story?"

Orem stared at her; Beauty also paused, the knife poised in her hand. And Orem remembered Youth reaching out to him, taking the tear from the corner of his eye, and tasting it. The Passage would be complete after all, if Orem only said the words.

Beauty looked suspiciously from Weasel to the Little King. What was the trick? Were they trying to fool her into staying the knife while the sunlight was still split upon the crest of the Palace?

She could not delay now. This was the day, the moment, and so Queen Beauty ignored their attempt, as she thought, to distract her. She turned back to Youth and raised the knife.

In that moment Orem muttered the final words of the rite, completing it. "Come water, come water. Come mother, come daughter. Come father, come son. Come blood and be done. The Hart makes us one, the Hind for the slaughter." In that moment all the power Beauty had bound in him left him, went into his son. In that moment all Queen Beauty's magicking was swallowed by the unbound Sink who lay on the silver altar under the knife. In that moment the knife came down, cut through the child's throat. Blood spurted, ending the child's terrible shouts in a gurgle of foam.

Did Beauty know the power was gone from the blood before she drank? Who can know. She lifted Youth and held him over the basin that a servant held. In seconds it filled enough to satisfy her.

She laid down the still-living child, whose hands still struggled, whose eyes still started out of his small head in agony; she picked up the bowl and drank.

It was too late. The child died. The blood was worthless. All her magic was undone. All her sustaining, all her power; she had put it on the child so it would come to her again, and stronger. Lost now. She changed as they watched her; she lost her stolen face, she withered and decayed before their eyes, then toppled forward over the corpse of Youth.